no gives. None. That doesn’t even have a snowballs chance.

As far as the first turn observation, that came out a bit ago (2 months??) but I’ve not seen used. Granted I’m not sure any new hires have hit OE yet. And it is an option for the company. If they are as short/backed up on IE as they claim, it’s an option that only makes their issue worse.

 

Humor me here, but what is so stupid about this on Delta's part?

 

1. I've never heard about observations for new hires until i was at Delta. It was a pointless waist of time for me. Maybe its more useful for those transitioning from the military. But airline ops are airline ops.
2. The other two companies I have worked for as soon as the trip was assigned for training it was now no longer assigned to the original holder of the trip (They were pay protected for the original trip). I was more likely to pick something up and double dip being able to look at available trips a week or so out. Under our current way of doing things when I have to show up just to get released, I'm not doing anything other than going home.

 

Aside from the very unlikely and rare scenario where the student needing OE or the LCA calls out sick (you could just use a reserve just like EVERY OTHER TIME someone calls out sick short notice) or the student doesn't complete their sim training on time, what is the need to have the other FO show up for the trip? Other airlines don't do it this way. And if the company got their way, they'd be able to withhold more trips specifically for OE anyway, so there wouldn't even be an original FO assigned to the trip. What if the LCA or student called out sick for one of these trips!!? *gasp* This shows that the company isn't concerned with sick calls/unable to commute scenarios at all.

Making the original FO show for these trips actually hurts the company. If the trip was actually dropped earlier and the FO didn't need to show, it would be easier for him to pick up a WS on the PCS run the day prior which helps the company with coverage and saves them from expending a reserve or paying GS pay. Not to mention it just makes guys angry having to show up to the airport, jump through all the hoops calling scheduling and tying up some poor scheduler's time, finally getting released, then going home.

I didn't believe this at first and thought it was just anti-company conspiracy babble, but I honestly think the company might be trying to make it a miserable process so that we give up on LCA trip buys on the next contract cycle and just let them withhold more trips for OE purposes. There literally is no other good reason.

 

I’ll bet this was a thing long before most of us got here, and when you were young/junior enough to have taken advantage yourself. Did anyone then advocate to eliminate this very high cost item and improve efficiency? I bet not.

Now you’re senior and want the cost of this contractual nugget to be spread amongst all the pilots.

Your suggestion above would be the absolute minimum I’d consider, and I can’t even use the benefit any more. I’m sure the company won’t offer enough to make it go away.

 

And now you know the rest of the story...

Make it miserable so we give it up or expend negotiating capital for a fix.

 

Its safe to say we wouldn't ever get full value on anything unless the company makes a calculation mistake. They may have done that in weighing the value of the new hire "golden ticket" we gave up in exchange for a return of OE trip drops. At the time it was an issue of complete seniority abrogation with recovery on our end but now its the sacred cow of asymmetric loophole ninjas which is even more emotional. We'd give up company provided hotels for overnights before we gave up the theoretical ability for a few pilots to tripple dip and other "good deals" regardless of how prevalent or accessable something truly is.

That ship has sailed.

 

Pilots that want LCA trips buys gone always say it only effects a small percentage of the FO's. That is totally false, and with all the newhires coming in soon, there will be tons of IOE..This will give FO's a small break from the horrible trips out there domestically now.

 

You make excellent points. When you look at it objectively, it's CLEARLY better for them to remove the FO further out. They should know we will never give up trip buys for OE and just accept that fact, it will never happen. The Co. likes to run hot and I just can't understand why they want to burn two FOs on one trip, pay them both, and only get one trip covered.

It makes much more sense to at least get two trips covered further out. It seems to be some sort of emotional response by the Co. because they can't stand to see a pilot paid to do nothing/some mistaken belief that pilots will give up being paid to not fly a trip if they make it unpleasant enough.

 

Well TA1 tried to rip the whole benefit out of the group with what seemed like little (or nothing) in return. They wanted to withhold all trips bid by LCA from FO's during PBS so they could assign IOE and then allow FO's to pickup the remainders (or go to reserves). That was a complete abrogation of senior FO's seniority so despite agreeing that the present system is way inefficient, that solution was too much of a pendulum swing (along with trying to change PS and other things). TA2 (present system) allows them to pull trips out of open time I believe to augment what LCA's already have. Beyond the cost, it's a huge manpower inefficiency because the relieved pilots are not required to pick anything up, so you basically have to try to plan as though they don't and lure them back with GS's and hope.